40 The Sedgefield Country 



doubled back Claxon made a rather wide cast, when a loud 

 " holloa " was heard from two men standing on the fence 

 near to where the hounds had checked. Away we all 

 galloped back, Bevans, as usual, foremost to view him out 

 of the whin where the men were pointing to ; hounds dashed 

 in, but not a whimper was heard, not a hound spoke, and 

 after a good deal of whip cracking one of the men jumped 

 into the whin, when out rushed an old Scotch ewe with 

 scarcely a bit of wool on her. "Isn't that the beggar you're 

 looking for," said the man. Bevans' round, ruddy, smiling 

 face turned ashy pale, his countenance fell, and as he 

 galloped away, there came forth from out of his inner-man 

 unearthly sounds much resembling a young earthquake ; the 

 nature and meaning of these rumblings we did not care to 

 enquire. Bevans evidently thinking he had anathematised 

 sufficiently the fellow who had sold us, got the hounds to- 

 gether and we trotted away, not in the best of humours. 

 From that day the whin has been called " The Beggar's 

 Bush." 



" One day in Mr. Harvey's time," writes a reliable cor- 

 respondent, " there was a quick thing from the old Brierton 

 whin into Wynyard, when hounds should have been stopped, 

 but were not. I was in a ride where a wall of whins at the 

 side opened, a horse's head appeared, and then Jack's cheery 

 face, with an extra beam upon it, because he was interfer- 

 ing with a shooting arrangement ! " 



In the spring of 1878 Mr. John Harvey, who had now 

 been a master of foxhounds for fifteen years, namely, joint 

 master with Mr. John Henderson, of the Durham County 

 Pack, for nine, and sole master of the South Durham for 

 six seasons, intimated his inability, owing to the ravages of 

 Anno Domini and increasing infirmity, to continue in the 



